


I can't (carry on without you)

by TheTartWitch



Series: Harry Potter Canon Divergence [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Good Draco, Harry dies against Voldemort, M/M, Morbid, Sad, Secret Relationship, Suicide, Use of a Pensieve, they both die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9113962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: The war ends. Most people have lost something irreplaceable.Some can't move on from the loss.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, as established by the tags, this is super sad (but also maybe super convoluted and hard to follow?). It seems sad stuff is the best for dragging me out of writing slumps.

**_I loved and I loved and I lost you._ **

Draco sits in the ruins of Hogwarts, a tattered red and gold scarf just barely held in one fist. He stares at the sky, the clouds, the craggy scape of Hogwarts’ skeleton laid bare; anything but the small rectangle of earth where Potter’s body lays under a white sheet. Draco watched his mother transfigure the thing from a rose, and then he looked away. He hasn’t looked back.

**_I don’t want them to know the secrets._ **

His mother tugs him away from the front steps. She leads him down through the field to where Potter’s sheet drapes across a slender area. They’ve sectioned it off, after the first crazy fan tried to steal a body part for a collection or museum or something. Draco doesn’t miss his mother’s worried glances shared with his father behind his back, but they don’t matter much to him at the moment. It feels like everything that mattered died when they covered Potter’s bloody face with a corner if the sheet. _That’s MY job_ , he wanted to scream at them. _Don’t touch him with your filthy, doubtful hands, because everything about him belongs to ME._

**_I don’t want them to know the way I loved you._ **

He sits next to Potter’s covered corpse and remembers the way they’d met, snobbish and rude and too quick to exchange names. Then on the train, where’d they’d realized who the other was, and Weasley blocked him out for good. That year was spent trailing Potter’s footsteps, challenging and fighting and waiting, _waiting_ for the boy he wanted to know to turn and _see_ him. It took three years after that one for Draco to lure Potter to the corner of the Yule Ball and kiss him square on the mouth. That year was spent in the dungeons, keeping his godfather out of his head, and next to Potter, kissing and laughing and throwing thorned roses in the shape of insults.

**_And it hurts like hell._ **

Using magic, anything is possible. Beneath his wand, grass blades become bottles; memories become trails of glowing fog, entering the bottles. He follows the plan he’s been configuring in his head since he first heard of the inevitable ending of this battle on autopilot. His eyes glaze over, reliving everything he’s giving them: their first kiss. Their first meeting. Their second. Their rivalry; angry and friendly. His talent with Occlumency, how he blocks the Dark Lord from his last good thing like they never happened. How he left gifts littering the halls all these years, presents he chose for the one person he’s never hidden from. How Potter arrived at his manor and Draco searched for his Harry in his eyes. How he smiled and lied during his first meeting with Potter after hearing the rest of the prophecy. _I’ll follow you, wherever you go_ , he’d promised, his mother’s favorite smile on his lips as a shield against the ugly, cruel tears of a Malfoy in love with someone destined to disappear, and Potter had smiled back like he hadn’t realized what Draco really meant.

**_Your heart fits like a key._ **

Draco’s filled every bottle. They ring Potter’s blasted sheet like a faerie ring: _keep away, mortals. This was never meant for you._ Draco pulls Potter’s hand into his lap and clenches it in his right while his left brings his wand up to his temple one last time.

 _How fitting, that this story begins and ends with the same spell_ , he thinks, closing his eyes against the flash of green that’s coming.

\--

Someone screams. Hermione thinks it might be Lady Malfoy, in the middle of being arrested. She can’t look, though: her attention’s been caught on Malfoy’s slumping body, the way it curls over Harry’s like an umbrella to stop the barrage of tears. Malfoy’s bottles glitter in the early morning sun, and inside of them, memories flicker like half-remembered dreams. She chokes but flicks her wand and summons the headmistress’s Pensieve from her office.

Malfoy’s made his choice, dealt his blow. And now Hermione’s going to see what, exactly, that choice meant to him.

At the first glimpse of their kisses, she closes her eyes and lets herself mourn for the smaller things war takes: love, self, chances. Handshakes.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like the ending is rushed. I wanted to include Hermione's point of view, but it doesn't seem to fit the way I'd hoped...  
> Let me know your thoughts? I always love comments! ;)  
> Also, I'm still taking requests/prompts. If there's something in particular you want to see in my style, shoot me a comment! I always love writing those, too!


End file.
